I've sucked at blogging more than usual lately. I'm here - exhausted most of the time but here. I have all sorts of intentions about blogging everyday but I just don't seem to make it onto the computer to blog. I think of all sorts of things to blog about - in my head I've composed multiple blogs over the past few weeks, they just don't ever really make it out of my head.
Hudson is 4 weeks old. I still can't believe he's here and he's ours. Although I'm quite tired, I'm loving every minute of it (well not every minute - I'm sure those 20 minutes on each boob at 3 in he morning aren't my favorite but you get the jest). Speaking of the boob - breastfeeding has got to be one of the most difficult things I've ever done. I completely understand why women give up. If I didn't have such strong convictions about breastfeeding, I too would have given up. There have been times when paying 20 something dollars per can of formula seems like a small price to pay. Leave it to the pediatrician's child to lose too much weight (he went down as far as 11% ) and not regain his birth weight until 3 weeks of life (instead of the preferred 10-14 days). Luckily breastfeeding is now going much better. They are even coming tomorrow to take away my hospital grade pump (my insurance covered it for a month). Surely that's a sign that things are going better now.
For those of you who think being a pediatrician somehow makes you immune to worrying about your child's health, I beg to differ. In fact my worrying about the baby's health is taken to a whole different level. Instead of worrying about my son sounding like he has nasal congestion or about dry skin (both things for which I see newborns of first time mom's quite often), I worry about horrible genetic diseases. I'm talking about diseases in which the child appears normal at birth and then the disease is noted at several months of life and the child dies by a year of age. I've had patients with this - although it's very rare, I've had 2 patients with this. I'm not going to mention the specific disease that I'm worried about so that someone out there in blog land doesn't google it and then also becomes a paranoid freak (also I'm not mentioning any more specifics because I don't want to freak R out). Granted there are no signs that our boy has this disease or any other disease for that matter - these are just random things that I worry about. Last week it was his vision, I was convinced that he was blind. I no longer think he's blind.
I do think that all this random worrying is tied into infertility. I'm sure the crack whore who gets knocked up easily and never worries about a miscarriage or a premature baby and who goes on to have a healthy baby never worries about any of this. But after trying so hard for over 3 years and after our combined 4 losses, I'm just still afraid that the fertility gods who finally smiled upon us will say "just kidding" and take him away. You know, just in the same way as we would get a hand full of positive pregnancy tests and then "psych, just kidding" you're not really pregnant, well not in the pregnant and it's going to lead to a baby kind of a way. Infertility fucked with my pregnancy - I was always worried that he would die in utero and now it's still fucking with me and he's in my arms. Shit, when did I become so neurotic. Interestingly, I don't feel that way about the babies inside of R. I don't worry about her miscarrying (even though she has in the past). I just feel that everything will be alright with those babies.
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You became this neurotic the day the test came up positive. :) And it never gets easier. Every time one of my children gets sick I worry myself sick that it isn't just "run of the mill". Every time they sleep longer than they should, I worry something is terribly wrong. I think we are all a bit crazy once children arrive - worries are replaced my new ones which are replaced by even newer ones. It never is easy. And I can totally see why you worry about more intense things - there are times when I know I need to not Google things because knowledge is known to bring fear. You know of things that are real and therefore, you have fear. If you didn't know about X, then you wouldn't know to fear it.
I had a friend who had a baby around the same time as me, as the boys grew, she became obsessed with Autism. Her sharing her fear and knowledge with me gave me a whole new set of fears to stress over.
Parenting isn't easy and parents are neurotic about their kids safety and health. And I think you are right - when you struggle so hard to have children everything is heightened and increased.
My only suggestion is to try to not let it consume you. (and no, I have no idea how to do that. This is one of those "do as I say, not as I do" moments *grin*) Hormones after birth also play a huge part is our being neurotic. Just think of it as natures way of making you aware of everything. :)
That is funny. I can totally understand how you might worry about your body failing and Hudson falling ill, and then feel great about R's progress with the babies. We would never put that negativity and self blame on anyone but ourselves. Why is that? I wonder why we hold ourselves to such a standard that we would never expect any other human being to uphold. :)
He's beautiful. I hope to have just one like him some day soon.
Welcome to motherhood. LOL. I was a bit (a bit?) neurotic PRIOR to motherhood. As you well know, motherhood made me even more so. At least now I know you don't think I'm totally insane!
You never stop stressing. Whether it's why isn't he eating to why is he acting like a total pain in front of our friends (wink wink), you will always worry about what he does, how he feels, what he needs, and how he will turn out.
I think infertility is part of it, but the reality is, I think it's that switch that gets thrown when you hold your baby in your arms.
It is stressful at times. You always worry that something might happen or something serious might be wrong.
Glad you're doing great and so is the boy. I keep up with your wife's blog so that I get to see pictures. He's so adorable. :)
I think you are right about the fertility thing. I think about how easy and carelessly so many patients get pregnant and I just shake my head. Makes no sense.
Thanks for not sharing the horrible disease to protect the rest of us. :-)
I am SOOO WITH YOU on every thing you talked about. Well except the breastfeeding at 3 am. I'm done doing that. :)
I didn't think about the infertility playing a factor in all of it.
Breastfeeding sucks ass...I'm proud of you for sticking with it.
I KNEW without a shadow of a doubt that one of my sons was autistic at 3 weeks old. I just KNEW it. I cried and cried and begged God to help him. To make him be ok. It was as if I was mourning the loss of a child or something.
being a parent fucks with your brain. I've been told by more experienced and older mothers....that these feelings of fear never leave and in fact get bigger...change.
YIPPPEEEEE.
I know where to see pictures of that beautiful boy...and OMG is he beautiful.
BFing was so hard in the beginning. I was in such pain. Everyone said it would get better...and it did. But I stopped pumping in the middle of the night and my supply dwindled and it gradually just dried up and I stopped. And it is my biggest regret to this day that I didn't try harder. So good for you for doing it!
I remember when A would latch on and start drinking there was this split second of euphoria...one of those moments when life was perfect. I read this happens to some women. I was so lucky to have it happen to me! I
I'm so glad you're doin o.k. I was starting to worry! I'm so glad little Hudson is o.k. Way to go with the breastfeeding determination!
I think the problem with the infertility demon in our heads is that it's shown us what could go wrong. It's also why knowing all the childhood disease zebras that we know about is great as a doc but not so good as a mom...one thing to spot it in a patient and another to contemplate it happening to your own babe. I'm right there with you as a neurotic nelly!
Without my own blog, once again, I am stealing ME's to post...so this is M.
We are not mothers..yet. At 24w6d we continue to be nervous about bringing this pregnancy as close to term as possible, and having healthy babies. It doesn't matter that both the OB and the peri say everything looks great; not that my cervix is long and thick, not that their growth is right on target, not that their discordance is 6%.
Having struggled with infertility for almost three years ourselves, through the birth of four nieces and nephews, through five IUIs, five IVF's, and a hearbreaking loss of a pregnancy at 16 weeks from a "severe fetal abnormality" (who ever worried about urethral atresia??) I completely agree that infertility is the culprit here - never letting us relax, never allowing us to believe that yes, everything will be OK.
Right now, we continue to hope and to pray...we are finally starting to get the nursery together, and have actually (at the urging of friends) created a registry.
I know that the fear has no factual basis, but it's real, and its ours -- we will deal with it until we hold our son and daughter in our arms, and then, like you, I know we will find a whole host of other things about which to worry.
But maybe, just maybe, it really is our turn for this joy...
de-lurking. I completely hear you about worrying about all sorts of things. I'm not an MD but come from a family of lots of 'em and that makes it almost worse (I know just enough to be paranoid and worst-case-scenario-ish). anyway, love your blog and I wish i had time to get back to mine! how's the breastfeeding going now? it gets better - i promise. there are challenges along the way, but it's so much easier than making formula all day :) read ya soon!
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